


farewell?

by HandsOfGold



Category: Powerwolf (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Blood, Gen, Graphic Description, Me? Shameless Venting? It's More Likely Than You Think!, Platonic Relationships, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:48:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24376048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HandsOfGold/pseuds/HandsOfGold
Summary: Is this how I die?
Kudos: 4





	farewell?

Matthew knew his hands were cold but he did not care.

By the window of his small fifth-story apartment he nestled closer to its frame, trying to let the final bits of warmth around his heart seep through his entire body. It was not that he wouldn't mind if his entire body went cold, it was more that he didn't want people, possibly children, to discover him dead on the street and be traumatized for the rest of their lives. Then he would have ruined even more lives, even in death.

He sighed, pulling his knees up close to his chest, so far they almost crushed his nose and prevented him from breathing. Sometimes Matthew wondered what it would feel like to stop breathing. Of course he knew that, realistically, it would feel like nothing. But he was curious if actually drowning would feel the same as the way he was constantly drowning in himself.

When he forced himself off the windowsill and closed the window, the apartment had assumed the same temperature as the stormy night outside. Matthew estimated it was around 8°C, not exactly freezing but cold enough for somebody who barely moved, barely ate, barely slept.

At night the thoughts kept him awake, the worries, the pain. He thought about his future, his life, and about how it was entirely pointless. It did not just feel entirely pointless, it actually was. He was a struggling artist whose music he could not imagine to be important to anyone. He did it all to express himself, anyways, so why would anybody care? Why would anybody care about him?

Instinctively he wrapped his arms around his skin, which was riddled with goosebumps. The touch of his icy hands did not help, it only made it worse.

Somewhere in this flat were enough pills to make his liver fail. The thought scared him a little, but mostly it put him into ecstasy. How easily a few chunks of candy-looking spheres terminate the function of an entire organism, end a very human existence.

Fool, he thought to himself, you haven't been human in years.

He felt like a ghost as he walked around the messy apartment, slipped out of the door, and wandered the deserted floors of his apartment building. It was 2am and his feet were bare, his body only covered in shorts and a tank top just because the cold reminded him that he was actually capable of feeling something besides pain.

As he opened the front door the moonlight cast a cold shine onto the red and pink lines on his arms. They burned and prickled and were hot despite the coldness of his skin. He had vowed to quit, had promised not to cut his skin open anymore but the desire was too consuming.

As he walked along the nightly city streets the gravel of waysides dug into his feet. It might have sliced the skin open, might have left a trail of blood drops behind him - he did not know and did not care. All he cared for was the escape, running mindlessly from his own thoughts from which there would not be an escape after all.

The old iron gate in front of him swung open at his touch - it had not been closed properly before, although it was late at night and the graveyard was not supposed to be visited anymore. More gravel underneath his feet, more pain, more feelings. Yet he remained numb.

Right next to him the church bells told him it was 3am. Startled by their sound he stumbled over one of the stones that lined the paths of the graveyard, could not hold himself, and fell.

The pain of his cut up arms trying to catch his fall, rubbing against the gravel, was greater than any pain he'd ever experienced. Matthew covered his eyes with his hands as dry sobs welled up in his chest, accompanied by no tears even though it was his deepest desire to just cry and release it all.

He was choking on his sobs. Drawing breath in turned into one, breathing out turned into one. There was nothing he wished more than to run, back to his apartment until he was out of breath, unlock the door, fall to his knees in front of The cupboard and pile up the pill packets in his arms. He would take his last bottle of vodka and swallow them down, one by one, until he was so dizzy he could not stand. Until he was clutching his stomach, retching, his body wanting to drain itself of the poison that had already reached its bloodstream. Until the world around him went black.

His fingers dug into the skin around his eyes, then wandered down to his chest. He wanted to scream but the last bit of reason prevented him as his fingers formed a claw on his chest as if to tear out his own heart. It was all too much to bear.

The grass and gravel beneath him was stained with the blood of his reopened cuts but he could not care less. He knew that this was the crucial point hit, if he went home now there was nothing stopping him from taking the pills, not even his own cowardice. But he could not stand up, legs paralyzed by the cold outside and inside him.

And his eyes fell onto a red shard of a broken eternal light. It was a revelation.

Is this how I die?, he asked himself, filled with awe for a moment.

In a graveyard, committing a sin with the remainders of something holy?

The thought froze him.

Then he remembered the phone booth just at the edge of the graveyard.

The way there was an agonized blur of pain. Matthew was sure he looked like a living corpse and that he would scare anybody who was out during these ungodly hours of night. But he knew, deep inside, that he wanted to live.

And that was why he did not go home that night.

Matthew clutched the payphone in the small booth, claustrophobia setting in due to the small space he was confined in. Then, a sleepy voice, an anchor that somehow stabilized him.

"Charles?" he asked in a tiny voice.

"Please... please come."

It was an unspoken promise Charles had made in the years of their youth, when Matthew used to stumble through the window to Charles' room, absolutely wasted and probably crying in some way. The promise that he would always be there if Matthew needed him. Somehow in these years of darkness Matthew had never felt bad enough to actually call Charles. But tonight was the final straw. Tonight, he needed somebody.

And Charles was there.

Had Matthew spared a rational thought he would have been astonished, even scared at the short time it took Charles to get into the city from the suburbs and find him slumped against the graveyard wall, a tiny figure alone in the windy night.

But Charles was there.

He helped Matthew stand up, accompanied him to his car. Looked over him during the entire time they were driving. Helped him clean his dirt stained wounds. Sat by his side, silently, just holding Matthew as he cried almost hysterically. Wrapped him in a blanket when his agony had eased a little.

There would be enough time to talk tomorrow. For now Matthew needed rest. And as he slowly drifted into sleep he caught hold of some final thoughts.

Matthew had heard a lot about how family came from blood and could not just be anyone. But deep down he knew that Charles was his brother, even though he wasn't, but he was.

Charles was there.


End file.
